The Family Fang: A Novel (8 page)

“It. Is. My. Crown,” Buster replied, almost vibrating with righteous anger, and Mrs. Fang allowed a slow smile to cross her face and unclenched her jaw. She gave in, nodded three times, and hopped into the van. “Okay,” she said, “you can redefine the crown if you want to.”

Chapter Four

B
uster was in a bad way. In his hospital bed, properly angled, he groaned softly and felt a deep, structural pain travel across his entire face. Even though he was barely conscious and aggressively doped, he understood his unfortunate circumstances.

“You’re awake,” someone said.

“I am?” Buster said, with some effort. He moved to touch his face, which ached and hummed in his ears.

“Oh, no,” the woman’s voice now said, “don’t do that. People always want to put their dang hands all over the thing that just got fixed,” but Buster was already falling back into something that resembled sleep.

T
he next time he awoke, a beautiful woman was sitting beside his bed, her face warm and confident, as if she had been expecting him to rouse at just this very moment. “Hello, Buster,” she said. “Hi,” he said weakly. He felt like he had to urinate and then, as soon as the feeling appeared, it was gone.

“I’m Dr. Ollapolly,” she said. “I’m Buster,” he replied, but of course she already knew that. He wished someone had maybe given him a lower dosage of morphine. She was beautiful and capable; he was doped up and possibly disfigured. Even through his haze, he thought, “I am in a bad way.”

“Do you remember what happened, Buster?” she asked him. He considered the question. “Potato gun?” he answered.

“Yes, you were accidentally shot in the face by a potato gun,” she told him.

“I’m invincible,” he said.

She laughed. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, Buster, but that is not an entirely accurate statement. You are lucky, I’ll give you that.”

She went on to explain the particulars of his situation. He had suffered some severe facial injuries. To begin, there was significant edema of the face predominantly on his right side, which, Buster guessed correctly, was where the potato had struck him. He had a stellate laceration (“like a star,” she told Buster) through his upper lip. His right superior canine tooth was missing. He sustained multiple complex fractures of the facial bones on his right side, including his upper orbital cavity. On the bright side, despite the eye shield he was wearing, his vision, she assured him, was intact.

“That’s good,” he said.

“You’re going to have a scar on your lip,” she said.

“Star-shaped,” he answered, wanting desperately to please her.

“Yes, a star-shaped scar,” she said.

“That’s hard to say,” he answered.

“You are less one tooth,” she continued.

“Okay.”

“And after the operation to stabilize those fractures, you are looking at some recovery time before your face is totally healed.”

“You saved my life,” he said.

“I fixed you up,” she said. “That’s all.”

“I love you,” he said.

“That’s fine, Mr. Fang,” she replied. Before exiting the room, she smiled with great sincerity, as he imagined all doctors must do if they want their patients to recover.

H
e owed, according to the solicitous financial officer who snuck in one morning and informed him, somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve thousand dollars in medical fees. Did he have insurance? He did not. Things got awkward after that. Would he like to set up a billing plan? Buster did not. He pretended to fall asleep and waited for the woman to leave his room. Twelve thousand dollars? Half a face for twelve grand? For that kind of money, he wanted X-ray vision, a bionic eyeball. Jesus Christ, he’d at least like to get his missing tooth back. He thought about jumping out of the window and running away, but by then he was genuinely asleep, no longer necessary to pretend.

O
n the third day of Buster’s recovery, one day before he was to be released, Joseph showed up, wheeling in Buster’s luggage from the hotel. “Hey, soldier,” Buster said, and Joseph reddened and stiffened. “Hey, Buster,” Joseph finally said, flinching at what Buster assumed to be his own distorted, swollen face.

“You got me pretty good,” Buster said and tried to smile, but it was a facial expression that was beyond his abilities for the time being.

Joseph looked at the floor and would not respond.

“I’m kidding around,” Buster said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I wish I was dead,” Joseph said.

He dragged the luggage to the corner of the room and sat gingerly on the suitcase, opting against the seat next to Buster. Joseph rested his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands. He looked like ominous weather, about to sputter and cry.

“I just, honest to god, wish I was dead,” he repeated.

“But I’m fine,” Buster said. “It’s no big deal.”

“Have you seen your face, Buster?” Joseph asked. Buster had not, having taken great care to avoid looking in the mirrors placed strategically around the room and over the sink in the bathroom.

“I’m being released tomorrow,” Buster said, changing the subject. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m better or if it’s because I don’t have any money.”

Joseph said nothing, seemed unable to meet Buster’s lopsided gaze.

Buster reached for his plastic sippy cup and took a few tentative sips of water, dribbling most of the liquid down the front of his gown. “Where are the other guys?” he asked.

“They can’t come,” Joseph said. “I’m not supposed to be here either, but I wanted to tell you I was sorry and I wanted to bring your luggage from the hotel.”

“Why aren’t you supposed to be here?” Buster said, confused. “Are visiting hours over?”

“My parents talked to a lawyer and he said I’m not supposed to have any further contact with you.”

“Why?”

“In case you sue us,” Joseph said, now actually beginning to cry.

“I’m not going to sue you,” Buster said.

“That’s what I told them,” Joseph responded, his breathing ragged and his voice cracking, “but they say our relationship now has an
adversarial quality
and for as long as you can legally file charges, I can’t talk to you.”

“But you’re here right now,” Buster said.

“Even with all the crazy stuff that’s happened,” Joseph said, smiling for the first time since he arrived in Buster’s room, “I’m glad we met each other.” Buster, twelve grand in the hole, face reconstructed and still tender, agreed.

H
e left the hospital with several photocopies regarding his medical status, several official notices of payment due, and his plastic sippy cup. As he waited for a taxi, he realized that he wasn’t entirely sure where to go or, more important, how to get there. Because he had been unsure of the length of his trip, he had never purchased a return flight. He had maxed out his credit card. He tried to imagine the worst way to travel and, just as the taxi arrived, he understood how to proceed. He stepped into the backseat and said, “Bus station.”

All around him, Nebraska remained flat and frigid, and Buster fought the urge to sleep until the taxi reached its destination. He stared at the ice-tinged fields, the inexplicable birds nearly frozen to the power lines, and understood that whatever he was returning to, wherever it was, would be surprised to have him back.

Standing in line at the bus station, he realized that he did not have enough money to get back to Florida. Unable to control the tremors of his hands, he laid out his cash on the counter and then asked, “Where does this get me?” The ticket agent smiled and patiently counted out the bills. “You can get to St. Louis and still have five dollars left,” she said. “I don’t know anyone in St. Louis,” he replied. “Well,” she said, her kindness the only thing keeping Buster from breaking down, “where do you know someone?”

“Nowhere, really,” he answered.

“What about Kansas City? Or Des Moines?” she said, her fingers typing furiously on the keyboard, as if searching for the answer to a particularly difficult question with the help of very limited resources.

“St. Louis is fine,” he said, unable to maintain his composure.

“Chuck Berry’s hometown,” the ticket agent offered.

“That seals it then,” he replied, and took his ticket and five dollars in change and collapsed in a seat in the middle of an unoccupied row. He fished a pill out of his prescription bottle and swallowed it, waited for the ache spread tight across his face like cling wrap to disappear. He said, “Meet me in St. Louis,” but didn’t know whom he was addressing. Joseph? Dr. Ollapolly? The ticket agent? Perhaps he should extend the invitation to all three and hope one might take him up on the offer.

He fell asleep and when he awoke, perhaps an hour later, he had some one- and five-dollar bills resting on his chest and in his lap. He counted it out, seventeen dollars. It was both touching and incredibly patronizing. He lingered on the aspects of it that were touching and felt a little better. He thought this would make for a hilarious down payment on his medical bills, and instead walked to the diner across the street and ordered a milkshake that was cold and sweet. It was one of the few things he could imagine consuming, considering that his mouth was constantly aching. He placed the straw in the gap where his missing tooth had once been. He ignored the few customers in the diner, who were trying, and failing, not to look at him and ruin their appetites.

A
t the pay phone in the bus station, he called Annie collect but the phone rang without promise of an answer, not even her voice mail. If she picked up, of course she would help him out, though he hated asking, admitting that he could not keep himself safe and sane. He had not spoken to her since he had inadvertently seen her breasts on the Internet. Seeing her naked wasn’t the problem, though it wasn’t something he’d recommend to other sensitive boys who idolized their older sisters, it was the feeling he had gotten from the picture, that his sister was falling into something disastrous and depressing. And then there was the resulting frustration, knowing that he probably couldn’t help her. But none of this mattered at the moment, because she wasn’t answering the phone, and so he hung up.

He considered his remaining options. They were obvious and terrifying. His parents. He kept trying to rewrite the equation so that the answer was something other than his parents but each and every time he worked his way to the end, it was always Mom and Dad, Caleb and Camille, Mr. and Mrs. Fang.

“Hello?” his mother said.

“Mom,” Buster replied, “it’s your child.”

“Oh, it’s our child,” she said, genuinely surprised.

“Which one?” he heard his father ask, and his mother, not savvy enough to cover the receiver or perhaps not caring, said, “B.”

“I’m in a bad way, Mom,” he said.

“Oh no,” she said. “What’s wrong, Buster?”

“I’m in Nebraska,” he said.

“Oh, that is bad,” she cried. “Why are you in Nebraska?”

“It’s a long story,” he said.

“Well, this is a collect call, so we better keep it brief.”

“Yeah, so I need your help. I got shot in the face and—”

“What?” she shouted. “You got shot in the face?”

His father’s voice came on the line. “You got shot in the face?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Buster answered. “But I’m okay. Well, I’m not okay but I’m not dying.”

“Who shot you in the face?” his mother asked.

“Is it a long story?” his father asked.

“It is,” Buster said. “It’s very, very long.”

“We’ll come get you,” his mother said. “We’re on our way. I’m getting the atlas out right now and I’m drawing a line from Tennessee to Nebraska. Wow, that’s a heck of a drive. We better leave right now. Caleb, we’re leaving.”

“We’re on our way, son,” Mr. Fang said.

“Well, hold on,” Buster answered. “I’m going to be in St. Louis in a few hours.”

“St. Louis?” his mother said. Buster imagined her erasing the mark in the atlas and drawing a new line. “Should you be traveling after getting shot in the face?”

“It’s okay. It was a potato.”

“What was a potato?” Mr. Fang asked.

“I got shot in the face with a potato,” Buster said.

“Buster,” his mother said. “I’m so very confused right now. Is this some kind of guerrilla theater? Are you taping this? Are we being taped?”

Buster felt seismic shifts going on underneath his face. He felt dizzy and struggled to stay upright. For the next five minutes, he tried to walk his parents through the past few days, and by the time he was finished, they were all in agreement. Buster would come home and recuperate with his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Fang would take care of their boy. He would relax and his body would heal itself and the Fangs, all three of them, would have, according to his mother, “so much damn fun.”

O
n the bus to St. Louis, a man with a ukulele stood in the aisle and offered to play requests. Someone shouted out, “Freebird,” and the man sat back down, visibly angered. Buster carefully made his way down the aisle to the bathroom. After several unsuccessful attempts to shut the door, he finally gave up and simply stared at the tiny, nearly opaque mirror. His face was grotesque. Despite all preparations for his disfigurement, he had not expected such spectacular swelling this far removed from the incident. One half of his face was nearly purple with bruising, strips of skin missing and scabbing over, everything twice the size that it should be, except for his eye, which was vise-grip closed and five times the size that it should be. The scar on his lip was less of a star and more of a wishbone or, more accurately, a horseshoe. Stars, horseshoes, wishbones. His scar was nothing but lucky symbols. Using the tube of antibiotic ointment, which would soon need to be expensively refilled, he dabbed the medicine on his cuts, which took some time and effort. When he was finished, Buster smiled at his reflection and saw that this made things worse. He returned to his seat, the aisles around him completely empty, everyone on the bus giving him a three-seat buffer in all directions. This was a kind of life he understood, a three-seat buffer whether he wanted it or not, time to think, whether he wanted to or not, traveling down the highway to someplace new, whether he wanted to or not.